Between the armistice of Leoben and the signature of the Treaty of Campo Formio with Austria in the autumn, the basic instability of the regime in France led to another coup in Paris. The coup of 18 Fructidor year V (September 4, 1797) was provoked by the growth of royalist representation of the councils and in the provinces, where, especially at Marseille and Lyon, the anti-Jacobin movement was strong enough to initiate a “white terror.” The government, however, remained in the hands of the opposite camp, since four out of the five directors were men of Jacobin views. These four enlisted the support of Bonaparte, who sent troops to Paris under Augereau to ensure the purge of 18 Fructidor. The director François de Barthélemy and 53 deputies were arrested, elections in more than half the départements annulled, liberty of the press suspended, and banishments decreed. After 18 Fructidor, the government of what has been termed the second Directory was in effect a dictatorship, with the result that the impulse toward an ambitious foreign policy was greatly strengthened. Bonaparte’s freedom to dictate virtually his own terms to Austria led to the signature at Campo Formio, on October 17–18, 1797, of what could only be a truce and not a final settlement. The treaty preserved the bulk of Bonaparte’s Italian conquests for France. By way of compensation for the loss of possessions in Lombardy, Austria received the Venetian territories east of the Adige, but Venice’s Ionian Islands were retained for France. At the same time Austria agreed that France should annex the occupied German lands south and west of a line drawn from Venlo on the Meuse to the source of the Nette River, then along the Nette to the Rhine between Andernach and Neuwied and then southward up the Rhine to the Swiss frontier. The estates of the empire were to meet in a congress at Rastatt to ratify these arrangements and to consider how the dispossessed German princes should be compensated.

Britain and the war (1796–97)

For Great Britain the loss of the Austrian alliance in 1797 was the culmination of a long succession of misfortunes and setbacks. Naples had signed an armistice with France on June 5, 1796, and peace on October 10. On October 6, moreover, the alliance between France and Spain under the Treaty of San Ildefonso (negotiated in August) had been made public. This so strengthened enemy sea power as to threaten British maritime supremacy, and Pitt thought that the situation demanded an attempt to open peace negotiations. Though the Austrians at this point refused to associate themselves with the British, Malmesbury was sent to Lille on October 14, 1796, to demand the abandonment of Belgium and the cession of colonies as the conditions of peace. The death of Catherine the Great in November led to a weakening of Great Britain’s understanding with Russia. In little more than two months after Malmesbury’s arrival, the Directory, as was to be expected, instructed him to return to England. On August 10, 1797, Portugal made peace with France.

The combined French, Dutch, and Spanish navies had sufficient numbers to challenge Great Britain’s command of the seas, barring the British fleet from the Mediterranean, threatening communication and commerce (it was in 1797 that the French took their greatest number of prizes, capturing 700 merchantmen), and, above all, menacing the British Isles, where an invasion force, once landed, might hope to succeed. Furthermore, the completely unsatisfactory living conditions in the British fleet caused the mutinies of Spithead (April–May) and The Nore (May–June). Talks with the French were resumed on July 7 but collapsed, partly because of the growing insecurity of the government in Paris, whose fall might be expected to offer greater advantages than its representatives were prepared to admit. Yet, as has been noted, the purge of 18 Fructidor was to stiffen French policy.

Great Britain was certainly not so disadvantageously placed as to be ready for peace at any price or likely to ignore the prospects of a more favourable prosecution of the war. The economic warfare of the Directory had not prevented the increase of British exports; and though government expenditure had been almost trebled between 1792 and 1797, the marked growth in national income permitted heavy borrowing by the government to make up the mounting deficit. For more than a year Great Britain stood alone against France, and a growing sense of the need to sustain the war and the national cause pervaded British society. In the budget of 1798 Pitt increased the assessed taxes, and in an act of 1799 he introduced the income tax, levied at 2 shillings in the pound on incomes over £200 and at graduated rates down to incomes of £60 per annum. Apart from these internal considerations, two naval victories in 1797 did much to reduce Great Britain’s immediate concern. Jervis’s defeat of the Spanish fleet off Cape Saint Vincent on February 14 was followed by his blockade of Cádiz and Admiral Duncan defeated the Dutch fleet at Camperdown on October 11.

The French expedition to Egypt and Syria

On his return from an inspection in the west, Bonaparte advised the Directory (February 23, 1798) to abandon its project for an invasion of Great Britain. He and the Directory then turned their attention to the Mediterranean and, in particular, to Egypt, from which the French might dislocate British trade in the Levant and, possibly, threatened the British position in India.

The expedition sailed from Toulon on May 19, with a fleet of 65 navy vessels escorting 280 transports and an army of 38,000 men. It reached Malta, which surrendered at once, on June 6 and landed in Egypt on July 1, having narrowly escaped the fleet with which Nelson had set off from the Gulf of Cadiz in pursuit. On July 21 the French routed the Mamluks in the Battle of the Pyramids and entered Cairo. Nelson, who had gone back as far as Sicily, appeared with his fleet in Aboukir Bay, and in the Battle of the Nile, in the night of August 1, destroyed all of the French fleet but two ships of the line and two frigates.

Nelson’s victory stimulated European opinion toward a resumption of hostilities with France and encouraged the Turks, nominal sovereigns over Egypt, to declare war on September 9. With the support of a British squadron, they began to assemble an army in Syria for the invasion of Egypt. Bonaparte resolved to anticipate this by an offensive in Syria, for which he set off in February 1799 with 15,000 men. The obstinate defense of Acre—assisted by Sir Sydney Smith’s capture of the vessels bringing the French siege artillery—obliged Bonaparte on May 20 to begin the retreat to Egypt, in which his already much depleted force suffered considerable losses. Not long after his return to Egypt the Turks landed an army at Aboukir which the French destroyed on July 25. On August 22, 1799, Bonaparte handed over the Egyptian command to Jean-Baptiste Kléber in order to return to France. The allies in the war of the Second Coalition had reached the frontiers of France and had brought the government close to collapse. Its weaknesses, together with the threat of a royalist reaction, offered Bonaparte the opportunity to make himself its master.

Formation of the Second Coalition

If Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt had paved the way to a Second Coalition by inspiring the alliance of Great Britain, Russia, and Turkey, the foreign policy of the Directory itself had served still more to provoke a new alliance which, with the adhesion of Austria, would oblige the French to exert every effort if they were to retain their conquests in Europe. From the beginning of 1798 the Directory had undertaken new conquests which Vienna could construe as a violation of the settlement of Campo Formio. At the end of 1797 local revolutionaries had attempted a rising in Rome. For this the French were blamed, and their general, Leonard Duphot, was killed in a riot. The French Army of Italy was ordered to march on Rome, where the Roman Republic was proclaimed on February 15, 1798. Bonaparte had prompted the Directory to occupy Switzerland, where the democratic party had hoped not for a French invasion but for sufficient threats from the French to make the governing classes submit to its demands. On the night of February 13–14, 1798, the Directory ordered an advance on Bern, which capitulated after some brisk fighting. The cantons were summoned to raise 15,000,000 francs for France. At the same time the French intervened in the internal affairs of the other satellite republics. In Holland the Batavian assembly was obliged on January 22, 1798, to draft a new constitution more in keeping with French demands. On February 21 the Directory concluded an alliance with the Cisalpine Republic which maintained its occupation by 25,000 troops at the expense of the population. Meanwhile, at the congress of Rastatt, which had begun its sessions on November 16, 1797, the French demanded not only the Rhine frontier as proposed at Campo Formio but also the Cologne area north of the Nette; the estates of the empire agreed to this in principle on March 9, 1798. In the nine départements which the French had formed from the Austrian Netherlands, the bishopric of Liege and the territory ceded by the Dutch in 1795, and in the four départements of the Rhineland, the Directory installed administrations controlled by Paris.

In September 1798, with the consent of the Turkish government, a Russian fleet entered the Mediterranean, where the emperor Paul, appointing himself protector of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, intended to liberate Malta from the French. This, together with Nelson’s victory at Aboukir Bay, encouraged the Neapolitans, with British help, to attack the new Roman Republic, and they occupied Rome on November 26, 1798. Inevitably the Directory declared war on Naples (December 4), and it sent French troops to invade Sardinian Piedmont. The French commander in Rome, Jean Étienne Championnet, was attacked by the Neapolitans at Civita Castellana but routed them and then advanced to occupy not only Rome but also Naples. Russia then signed alliances with Naples and with Great Britain (December 29), undertaking to send contingents to Naples and to Lombardy in return for a British agreement to pay £225,000 and £75,000 a month. Russia also signed an alliance with Turkey (January 3, 1799, New Style; December 23, 1798, Old Style). Meanwhile the Russians attacked the Ionian Islands; Corfu, the last to fall, capitulated on March 3, 1799. Austria, which had signed a defensive alliance with Naples in May 1798, but was hesitating, despite assurances of Russian support, to break with France, finally declared war on March 12.

Paul, detail of a portrait attributed to J. Voille, c. 1800; in the collection of Mrs. Merriweather …

Courtesy of Hillwood, Washington, D.C.

French dispositions and the campaigns of 1799

The renewal of general war found the Directory ill-prepared numerically as well as materially. Since the allies could bring roughly twice as many men into the field, the safest course for the French would have been to concentrate their forces in the two most vital theatres—southern Germany and the Italo-Austrian frontier—in the hope of containing the initial allied offensives until such time as the conscription introduced in September 1798 yielded sufficient men for the French to adopt a more ambitious policy. Instead, they dispersed their armies and were consequently defeated in detail; they were spared further reverses only because the Austrians likewise failed to distribute their forces to best effect.

At the opening of the campaign nearly 80,000 Austrians under the Archduke Charles were assembled behind the Lech river in Bavaria. To the south were 26,000 in Vorarlberg commanded by David von Hotze, and behind them, in Tirol, a further 46,000 under Heinrich von Bellegarde. With the 85,000 in Italy there were thus close on 240,000 deployed against the French before the arrival of the Russians, who were expected to add another 60,000. Against these formidable numbers the French had 210,000 men, of whom only 136,000 were made available to meet the Austrians. In Italy, where the total French effectives stood in the region of 110,000, the Directory could find no more than 60,000 for the defense of the Adige. They had resolved to retain Jacques Macdonald in the south with 30,000 men in order to complete the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples, though this would count for nothing if their principal army were defeated in the north. Of their remaining 100,000 troops, 24,000 were in Holland under Guillaume Brune, which left Jourdan on the upper Rhine to face Charles with 46,000 men, while 30,000 were in Switzerland with Masséna.

Jacques Macdonald, duc de Tarente.

Photos.com/Jupiterimages

Having decided that the best prospect of success lay in attacking before the Russians could appear on the scene, the French took the offensive on all three fronts. Early in March Jourdan went forward between the upper Danube and Lake Constance while the Army of Switzerland advanced toward Vorarlberg. On the centre and right of his front. Masséna obtained a number of advantages, the most notable being the march of Claude Lecourbe into Tirol along the Engadine. Masséna failed, however, to capture the essential post of Feldkirch (March 23) whose possession would have enabled him to open communication with the Army of the Danube. Jourdan, meanwhile, had already been forced to fall back before Charles’s doubly superior numbers and on March 25 was defeated at Stockach. By April 6 Jourdan’s troops had recrossed the Rhine, and Masséna, who was now in command of both armies, began to concentrate his forces for the defense of central Switzerland. In Italy Schérer opened his offensive along the Adige on March 26, but did not exploit his initial success. Ten days later, he was beaten at Magnano and withdrew prematurely to the Oglio and then to the Adda. The Austrians, under Paul Kray, halted on the Mincio, where they were joined by 18,000 Russians under Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov, the allied commander in chief. On the French side, the much abler Moreau replaced Schérer, and Macdonald was instructed to make his way northward. After four days’ costly fighting along the Adda (April 25–28), the French were obliged to resume their retreat. Fortunately for Moreau the allies neglected to press their pursuit of his greatly weakened forces toward Alessandria and the mountains north of Genoa. For more than a month Moreau maintained himself in the Apennines while awaiting Macdonald’s approach from the south. At length he advanced to threaten the allies’ rear as Macdonald marched westward from Parma. Suvorov nevertheless succeeded in gathering together sufficient troops to defeat Macdonald on the Trebbia (June 17–19). After withdrawing eastward by way of Parma and Modena, Macdonald finally recrossed the Apennines to reach Moreau at Genoa in mid-July.

Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov, detail of a portrait by J. Schmidt, 1800; in the State Hermitage …

Courtesy of the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad

In the northern theatre the French left wing and centre had retired to the Rhine in early April. During the next six weeks Masséna’s right wing was pushed back through the Grisons by the Austrians under Bellegarde and Hotze. When the French right had completed its retreat the Austrians redistributed their forces, Hotze marching to join the archduke east of Zürich while Bellegarde was sent south to Lombardy. On June 4, Masséna repulsed Charles and Hotze before Zürich prior to withdrawing to establish his front along the Aare River. There the Austrians left him virtually undisturbed for longer than two months while they waited for the arrival of Aleksandr Korsakov with 30,000 Russians. The lull was broken in mid-August when the French right wing under Lecourbe recaptured the St. Gotthard Pass at the same time that Masséna beat off an assault on the Aare. The allies had originally intended to employ both the archduke’s and Korsakov’s armies against Masséna’s front and to complete his difficulties by bringing Suvorov against his rear. They now decided to send Charles and 35,000 of his army to unimportant operations on the middle Rhine. Before long the consequences of leaving Hotze and Korsakov to contain Masséna were to prove decisive. Meanwhile, in Italy, where Barthélemy-Catherine Joubert had replaced Moreau as commander in chief, the French had sought battle only to receive a heavy defeat at Novi on August 15. Soon afterward the allied command in Italy also changed hands with the departure for Switzerland of a 28,000-strong contingent under Suvorov. The transfer of Charles’s forces to Germany had reduced the allied strength in Switzerland to 55,000 men, and the French, who had disposed of 77,000, took the offensive while Suvorov was still at the St. Gotthard. In the second battle of Zürich (September 25) Masséna gained a crushing victory over Korsakov and drove the Russians northward across the Rhine. On the same day Nicolas-Jean de Dieu Soult routed Hotze on the Linth River southeast of Lake Zürich. To the south, Suvorov forced the St. Gotthard Pass and continued his advance, still harassed by Lecourbe, until he reached the southern end of Lake Lucerne, where he was obliged to turn eastward. Pursued by increasing numbers, the Russians achieved an extraordinary retreat to Ilanz, where their arrival on October 7 marked the virtual end of the campaign. The emperor Paul recalled his Russians on October 23.

Elsewhere in Europe, an Anglo-Russian expedition to Holland had its genesis on June 22, when the two powers concluded an agreement in which the British, who were to furnish 30,000 men, undertook to pay and transport a Russian contingent of 18,000. It was hoped that the enterprise would free the Low Countries of the French, but the sole positive outcome was the surrender of 13 Dutch ships of the line, together with a number of other warships, three days after the first British landing at Den Helder (August 27). At Bergen, on September 19, Brune’s Franco-Batavian army halted the allies’ advance, and the expected rising of the Dutch against the French did not take place. After a further reverse at Castricum (October 6), the duke of York was obliged to sign the convention of Alkmaar (October. 18) for the evacuation of his forces. The expedition, with inadequate food supplies, further had been hampered by excessive rains, by flooding from broken dikes, and by the outbreak of fever.

The final defeat of the coalition and its dissolution belong to the campaigns of Bonaparte in 1800 in Italy, where the Austrians were decisively defeated at Marengo on June 14, and of Moreau in Germany, where he forced them out of the war by his crushing victory at Hohenlinden on December 3. The consequences of the Second Coalition had proved fatal to the Directory. Blamed for the resumption of hostilities in Europe, it was compromised by its defeats in the field and by the measures required to repair them. Conditions were now ripe for the military dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, who landed at Fréjus on October 9. A month later he seized power by the coup of 18–19 Brumaire year VIII (November 9–10, 1799) to make himself first consul.